Assignment 1: Create 3 book stacks
The contrast of interests between an Uncle and a niece
1. Mastering the trade, the potty book for girls
2. How to be a quick turn real estate millionaire baby shark
3. Getting past your breakup, no more pacifier, duck
Each image has a book from my boyfriends at home library and one book from his nieces at home library.
My boyfriend Gavin, is a 23 year old electrician whose goal in life is to make as much money as he can. He is very interested in reading about economics, learning new trades and learning about word history. On the other hand, his two year old niece Octavia is interested in dancing to the baby shark song and is being potty trained at the current moment.
They both live in the same house so I thought it would be a fun experiment to try to make funny statements using a book from each of their libraries.
I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary when going through Octavias books, however I found some funny books while looking through Gavins collection like : getting past your break up.
These stacks are a play on the “real-life” and the soft reality you live in as a child.
Field Trip Reflection: Toronto Biennial
Hanging Shoes:
This piece was was particularly captivating to me because I loved that this artist chose to repurpose something that probably would’ve ended up in a landfill, into art.
When I first observed this, I only looked up at all the hanging shoes and I thought that the way that the shoes were cut up, were meant to look like abstracted birds. It was only after that I noticed that the shadows that were cast from the shoes also looked like a flock of birds in the sky. This is such an interesting concept of repurposing materials and also using a natural resource to create such a cool installation.
From our guild at the gallary space, I learnt a little more about this artist and I came to know that this artist is interested in the topic of immigration/migration. If I remember correctly, the artist themselves is an immigrant and connected the topic of immigration to the migration of birds. A connection that I saw with shoes and birds is that we use shoes to get from place to place and birds use their wings.
Cardboard Drawings:
These drawings are from the same artist and are drawing of many different species of birds on cardboard that was used to import food from other countries. Depending on the season, birds migrate from place to place, and certain fruits and vegetables are only in season in certain months. Again, the artist used repurposed materials, but also has a very well thought out concept by using materials that were perviously used to transport goods from different countries.
Assignment 2: Short Video
Ideas and Chicken Scratch:
My brother does videography for skateboarding, BMX and snowboarding. For this type of videography, the fish eye lens is very popular to use because it gives a cool look to the clip and showcases what trick is being preformed very well. This lens is also used for underwater photo/video, intentional distortion and wide panoramic or hemispherical image. I have the idea to use this lens to create a short video for this assignment and to make the video as weird as possible. Also I want to maybe use this lense for not its intended purpose. Here are my possible ideas:
- Licking whipped cream off on my face; or someone else doing this action.
I had this random idea pop into my brain, it has nothing to do with the arboretum. I just thought that the combination of someone trying to lick whipped cream off of their face and struggling because their tounge is too short to reach would be extra funny because the fisheye would distort their face.
- Someone doing gymnastics in a prom dress.
I thought that filming someone tumbling barefoot on the grass in the arboretum, in clothes that one would normally not do gymnastics in would make for an interesting video. Combined with some dancing, I think it would look both goofy and mysterious to see someone in a prom dress doing back flips in the arboretum.
- A slow performance
Another idea is a slow performance; trying to move as slow as possible when doing a specific action. I did a slow performance in a group a few months ago, and I enjoyed it a lot, but now I would like to see what it would be like to do a slow performance solo. The goal would be to walk as slow as possible for point A to point B (not sure what that would be yet), and try to connect with the rich nature surrounding me. Observing surroundings and listening to all the animal noises.
I have decided to go with the slow performance idea. I am going to set my camera on a tripod and walk towards it from a certain distance (maybe 100-200m away). I don’t want to be too far away that you cannot see me at the start of the video but I also want to be far away enough that the video is decently long (aiming for around 20 mins I think, maybe longer depending). I will chose a point A to start my walk from and point B will be my camera. I would like to do it on a specific path because the trees drape over the path very beautifully, however I don’t want to be in the way of any vehicles that may want to pass through. I am going to wear a vintage dress, and the idea is to connect the idea that when this dress was made and worn, the trees in the arboretum were growing into the beautiful trees they are today. Connecting old with old in a way.
This video is a documentation of a slow performance in the Guelph Arboretum. This is a purely unclipped and barely edited video, your experience is my experience. When you hear the crackling in the mic, I felt the cold wind on my cheeks.
As busy students, we are constantly running from class to class, running for the bus, fitting in time to eat and trying to get enough sleep for the next day to just do it all over again; we miss the beauty of the land we live on. This video is a documentation of slowing down and appreciating my surroundings. While walking this slow I was able to look at the patterns created from the bark on the trees, I heard the pine needles and twigs snap from underneath my feet, and I heard the birds chirp from all around me in the distance.
While this video was only an experience for me and not necessarily engaging to the audience, it is meant to serve as a piece that plays on loop in the background; a meditative sound/visual that provokes thought and slows your brain down. If it were ever installed into a gallery, I would like to have a bench in front of the projection where people can sit to watch or just come and go as they please (only watching certain portions of the video).
Assignment 3, Artist Books: I Photocopied My Boyfriend
The plan is to use a photocopier to document my boyfriends many tattoos. I love the concept of using a printer to document low quality images to then scanning those prints to produce high quality prints, while still capturing the details that show that these images were taken from a photocopier.
This documentation is very intimate, the viewer gets a very up close and personal view of my boyfriends skin. The magazine is very fleshly, and maybe sexual?
Photocopies of myself: Practice
Photocopies of my boyfriend: Practice
These two sets of photocopies were scanned and printed on an HP printer that is probably 15 years old thats been sitting in my house. It is very clear that these printed are VERY low quality, and the colours are very inaccurate. When I did these proof prints, I initially loved these prints because they felt very candid to me and thought provoking because you can tell what the scan is of but at the same time it is ambiguous. My printer went on to break after these scans so I had to re route my plan.
Final Photocopies:
Theses photocopies were taken on a Canon printer that is a fairly newer model printer. As you can see the quality of the scans has much improved in terms of local colour, form and realism. There however is still some factors that make it a low quality scan though through the lines printed onto the scans. I like how these turned out because I managed to capture a fairly good quality scan using a photocopier while still capturing the the low quality details that comes from using a photocopier and printer as a form of documentation.
Final Published Book:
I chose to create a magazine to really emphasize the details from the printed photocopies. To achieve the best quality images for my printed magazine, I took all of my prints and scanned them using the printer in the experimental classroom. This ensured me that my low quality documentation would be presented to you with the best resolution; this way the viewer can really feel like they are holding my boyfriends skin while seeing all the imperfections of the printer.
This magazine, “I Photocopied My Boyfriend”, is a documentation of most of my boyfriends tattoos. It is very intimate and fleshy in the sense that only a select few people have seen all of his tattoos together, but with this magazine the viewer gets to experience all of his tattoos as-well without physically seeing his full body.
I also think this series of images showcasing his tattoos gives the viewer an insider perspective of him, who he is as a person, his interests and maybe the viewer would also be able to make a few assumptions about him: for example, he has two swallows on his hands and, those tattoos are associated with people who have served in the navy, however my boyfriend has never enlisted and is actually an electrician. Thus through that tattoo, the viewer could have assumed that he served in the navy but only I know that he actually got those tattoos with me while he was visiting me in Halifax.
Although this magazine is really intimate, is isn’t at the same time because I know him in a sense that any viewer never will, and I thinks its beautiful that I got to capture that is such a perfect way.
Assignment 4, Artist Multiples: DO MY NIPPLES BOTHER YOU
Brainstorming:
Are My Nipples Bothering you?
- Printing the phrase “Are my nipples bothering you”
- Onto a t-shirt or hoodie
- See through shirt, nipples are easily seen
- Creating a necklace stack that read the phrase “Are my nipples bothering you?”
- Charm necklace that forces you to read the phrase and look at ones chest
- Printing the phrase onto bras, then photographing them to print posters (series of 3)
- #1 T-shirt photo
- #2 bra photo
- #3 topless/ transparent tanktop photo
- Comparing and contrasting a male chest and female chest
- “Do my nipples bother you” Male chest photograph
- “What about now?” Female chest photograph
- Printing the phrase onto a t-shirt with a photo of female breasts on a shape of a bra
- Forcing engagement
- Series T-shirts
- “Are my nipples bothering you?”
- “Sorry, am I distracting you?”
- “I am sexualized by simply existing”
Documentation:
I have created this artist multiple as a response to the invisible but evident dress women’s dress code to not show/expose one’s nipples. Although it is never explicitly written or disclosed that a woman should cover the contour of her nipples, it is widely implied and implemented in society that women should be ashamed and embarrassed when that part of their body is visible in public. As a woman, I think that it is absurd that women’s bodies are sexualized to the point where we start to hide ourselves to help men “contain” themselves; it’s a reverse system.
I created a simple design, a black and white sticker and t-shirt that has the phrase “Do My Nipples Bother You”. It is not a question nor a statement, this phrase just exists, and the viewer can take it as they please. Do my nipples bother me, do they bother you? Whose you? Whose nipples are bothering me? These are the types of questions I assume that people are going to ask themselves when they see this phrase.
This phrase does not disrupt the place it is in, or where it is read, or worn, but rather just co-exist with its surroundings. I want to make people think, think about why women’s bodies are sexualized to the extent that they are, and why such a simple part of their anatomy (that note: all humans no matter the sex have) bother them so much.
I decided to place one of my stickers at the bus stop that I go to every morning, after a day or two someone had partially ripped it off. I am assuming that this person was offended by the phrase or something of that manner but I thought that it would be hilarious to fight back against this person and place a brand new sticker right under the ripped one.
Through this activation of my artist multiple in public I achieved exactly what I wanted from my intentions of this project. Someone saw it, pondered it, disliked it, tried to rip it off, probably thought about the phrase for a while while commuting on the bus, forgot about it, and then got slapped in the face with it again, and will probably repeat that cycle again.
As stated above, this phase is just meant to exist in the space that it is in, whether its worn, hung or stuck to something, its sole purpose is just to provoke thought in the viewer, and maybe eventually change the ideologies and taboo of women’s nipples being exposed in public.